


i don't mind not living, but

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Obsession, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 04:36:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11410353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: What was love, if not utmost devotion? Noriko knew the answer to that question, was nothing. She loved running and she loved Anna Yoshizaka. Anything else was secondary.





	i don't mind not living, but

Noriko joined the track team under reasons entirely unrelated to Anna Yoshizaka. At least, that’s how it was in the beginning. Really, she just gave Noriko that one push forward she needed. People tend to assume otherwise, but she doesn’t mind it; it’s human nature to jump to conclusions, is it not? She can understand that. The fact most of them aren’t aware that Noriko even has—or, well,  _had_ , if she’s telling the truth—a life that consists of things entirely unrelated to her big sister, usually tells her more about them than anything else.

Anyway, the point is, it’s not as if she cares. People can say whatever they want to her and she wouldn’t give a shit. There’s only one person in the entire world whose opinions she regards as anything higher than another blight in this miserable excuse of a world, and that’s her big sister. The problem, of course, is when people start talking bad about  _her_ , too.

Which is how Noriko lands herself in the principal’s office, three weeks after Yoshizaka is out of the hospital and five days after she stopped coming to school. Hannya stares her down from across his too-big desk with narrowed, frigid eyes, like she wasn’t right in yelling back at him for saying Yoshizaka—has-been, he called her; the audacity!—"is really quite pitiful, isn’t she?"

She didn’t bother listening to what else he had to say before running up to his face and telling him how pitiful  _he_  was being, and exactly what she thought about him. At least half a dozen students heard, but that was the least of her concerns. Her face had been scrunched up, her jaw defiantly taut, back forced ramrod-straight to meet his gaze. (She’d always been a small girl.) Her fingers curling into her palm, watery like her eyes, threatening to spill, to lose control. The possibility had felt real, and her restraint all the more brittle for it.

In the end, she gets five points deducted from her semester’s grade and a permanent blemish on her record for all her troubles. Punitive measures, she heard them call it. Her homeroom teacher calls her mother and her mother tells her father, and both of them sit her down at the living room after dinner for a talking-to that ends up lasting at least half an hour longer than it should be. Noriko presses her fingernails against her pajama pants and tries not to let it show too obviously that she’s not listening to them at all. The clock on the wall ticks like a slow, agonizing sentence. She wonders when her big sister will come to her senses. Yoshizaka’s house is always vacant, no matter how many times Noriko rings the doorbell. She misses her.  

 

 

 

Noriko likes—used to like a lot of things. Other things, that is. She liked sweets and she liked English and she liked running most of all. That was the reason she applied to the track team; she wasn’t much good at cooking despite her efforts and she stumbled critically when it came to pronunciation, but running was something she could pick out from her otherwise barren repertoire of talents and skills and confidently say she was both passionate and good at. Safe, expected. Those were the words that came to mind at the prospect. The anticipatory giddiness that filled her in result was not genuine, nothing close to that, but good enough all the same. Joining the team seemed like an immensely logical choice to make.

The next day, Noriko wrote her name on the sign-up sheet handed out by an upperclassman, confidently and in the blue ink of a borrowed pen. She had her entire life planned out in her head: she was going to be a normal girl, the kind who indulged in crepes on weekends and memorized vocabulary tables ahead of time and practiced her laps diligently, even on days when the coach had to cancel the club due to bad weather. She wasn’t going to be the kind of girl people would look at funny, or ask questions about when they thought she weren’t around to hear.

But then! But then her big sister came into her life, like a guardian angel descending from the heavens to aid an ailing child, or perhaps a poor stepsister barred from attending the ball: and just like that, Noriko understood that she’d been saved.

She stopped liking a lot of things, after that. That was the kind of price you had to pay for love. What was love, if not utmost devotion? Noriko knew the answer to that question, was nothing. She loved running and she loved Anna Yoshizaka. Anything else was secondary. And so the beginner’s cookbooks and reading material got shelved away, and in their place she bought new track shoes and a blue ribbon that reminded her of the color of Yoshizaka’s tie. 

 

 

 

She watched Yoshizaka as she ran practice laps across the field; she watched her standing underneath the shade during break, bottled water in hand; she watched the way her eyes lit up after every run and how alive she looked in that moment, dressed in her white tracksuit. It was then that Noriko realized she never wanted to look at anyone else but her.

She told her as much, and didn’t even mind when she didn’t receive an answer straightaway. Her love, she knew, wasn’t the kind that could be so easily crushed by uncertainties and doubt. The days which followed were normal. Her love was unwavering, fortified, an ivory tower fenced at all sides by belief and thorn-stemmed roses that climbed tall towards the sun. She smiled at Yoshizaka the same sweet way and held her hand as they made the walk back home after practice. She called her  _onee-sama_  with a soft voice and glowered harshly back at Hannya when Yoshizaka did not. She gave Yoshizaka time to think it over.

Yoshizaka gave her reply a week later. Noriko was in her room when her cellphone beeped and she had to fish under the crevice between her bed and the wall to retrieve it. It was late. She was on her back, her dark hair a mess without the blue ribbon usually keeping it in place. She flipped her phone open and when she saw the alert for a text message, she expected it would be from her father, who’d been out of town for two days, or a classmate she didn’t particularly care much for and who she was certain returned the lack of sentiment. Noriko was already contemplating deleting it, unread, when she saw the sender’s name.

The subject line was empty.  _I feel the same way_ , Yoshizaka had written, and beside it:  _Thank you for being patient with me all this time, Noriko._

A part of her would have liked to say with the confession there came a tide of change in their relationship: maybe a sense of clarity, or something more impactful than the admittedly giddy and pleasant realization they were  _together_  now. She thought, then, about calling the Yoshizaka outside her mind’s eye by her first name. Just Anna, no honorifics, no respectful term of address set upon her head like a tiara. She could do that now, she realized. Her heart raced.

She thought about it for a moment, wistful, and then she shut off her phone and went to sleep, reassured by the assumption that things between them would not change. The princess within the tower in her dreams stood by the open window, lithe and beautiful in her distance. A single moon, shining upon a vast sky absent of stars. Noriko could vanish and she wouldn’t have minded. No, she thought, not at all.

 

 

 

“Hello,” she greeted. The paper creased under the subtle pressure of her thumb. She tried again, compelled naturally by junior respect: “Good afternoon.”

The older girl gave a flippant shrug of acknowledgment, shaking something off her hair. Her line of vision aligned with Noriko’s, a fleeting, perfect moment, and then diverged again in a breathless instant. The temperature under her collar rose surreptitiously. It was mid-spring, but the air was unusually humid. Sunlight filtered in past the trees standing outside the clubroom window overlooking the courtyard, warm golden rays lancing through everything it touched like thin transient swords. By the time Noriko handed back the registration form to the second-year who had given it for her to fill, the characters making up her name had started to smear around the edges. She didn’t wipe the blue trace on her skirt, despite the urge.  

“Here you go,” said Noriko. The boy accepted it dutifully and placed it on top of the meager stack of applicants at the corner of the desk. She turned around and smiled her best, though it was surprisingly difficult to do while managing to look into those eyes without faltering. And she didn’t, not once. She didn’t want to be rude.  

Yoshizaka did not return the gesture straightaway. She glanced at the desk, Noriko’s hastily stapled-on identification picture meeting her eyes, then to the boy, before settling her gaze back to Noriko evenly. “Good afternoon,” she said. Recognition flashed across her eyes and waned just as quickly. “Noriko … Katayama, right? You were here yesterday.”

“Yes! You remembered. It’s—very nice to meet you, Yoshizaka-senpai!” She bowed without thinking.

“You said that yesterday, too,” Yoshizaka remarked. The flat intonation of her voice made Noriko’s face heat in instinctive embarrassment. But when she lifted her gaze back up, the other girl was smiling—a small muted thing—and before she knew it Noriko felt her own mouth curve up again, this time wider, and with more earnestness than she logically knew Yoshizaka had any reason to invoke.

Her cheeks were still pink with lingering warmth. Noriko ran a self-conscious hand through her bangs, tucked an errant lock of dark hair behind her ear. This wouldn’t happen so much if she’d bothered to tie up her hair, she thought. Hers had grown long and unruly during the holiday.

“Practice for new members won’t start until next week, actually,” the boy told her. He raised one hand briefly in dismissal. “You can go home for now, Katayama-kun.”

“Oh,” said Noriko. She nodded once to show that she had understood. When she turned to exit the clubroom she saw how the sunlight caught onto Yoshizaka’s face, how it made the color of her eyes seem warm, and she knew if she blinked the moment would end in an instant, so she didn’t. Instead she stilled, and allowed her gaze to linger, if only for a second. Then time moved again. Noriko closed the door politely on her way out. 

 

 

 

Sometimes Noriko had this dream. On nights when she didn’t dream of Yoshizaka she dreamt of a room—a blue, blue room—and a golden butterfly that asked her name.

It was a rainy afternoon. They walked side-by-side under a yellow umbrella (Noriko had forgotten hers, not entirely accidentally), making the slow trek down a slippery gray road. Her bag, slung over her shoulder, felt oddly heavy.

“Isn’t it weird?” The ribbon tying her hair whipped behind her head as she turned to Yoshizaka.

“I don’t remember most of my dreams,” she replied.

“I only remembered,” Noriko said thoughtfully, “because the blue made me think of your eyes.”

“Only you would say that, you know?” Yoshizaka said. Her head was tipped towards her, past the threshold of proximity.

Noriko did not blink; her eyes fluttered shut in an expectant instant. On the empty street in which they stood, the sound of the rain beating down on rooftops and umbrellas became little more than white noise afterwards.

 

 

 

On a Tuesday in September, Noriko abandons that day’s practice schedule, unannounced, to visit Yoshizaka at the hospital. A nurse shows her the way, and Noriko knocks thrice before entering. The room is white and sterile. An overnight’s worth of planning and constructing and memorized lines of encouragement and consolations crumbles in the instant she takes a seat at the uncomfortable plastic chair reserved for visitors. In her desperation she tries searching her mind for something to say, only to come up short. The bouquet of pale lilies crinkles miserably beneath her hand.

Yoshizaka’s eyes are a deep, deep blue, but it’s not the shade of blue she remembers. They’re empty. Noriko gets up from the chair, at loss, excusing herself with placing the flowers inside the barren ceramic vase on the bedside table. She fiddles with her hands too long, anxiety masking sorrow, and by the time she’s finished with the lilies, she’s halfway through wiping the tears already brimming at her eyes with the sleeve of her tracksuit. When she turns to look, Yoshizaka’s gaze is still as hollow as it was a moment ago, and Noriko has to will herself not to avert her eyes a second time.

“I’m sorry,” she tries, hesitatingly. Every syllable feels dry and tasteless, but she continues on: “I couldn’t be by your side when you needed it most.”

“You shouldn’t be,” is what Yoshizaka says.

Noriko swallows tightly. “I thought… it would have made a difference if I’d been there.”

“There was nothing anyone could have done to make it better. You and I know it. Did you miss today’s practice just to say that?”

The unsaid statement is what Noriko hears.  _You’re wasting your future on a girl without one._

“If you don’t—” and here she takes in a breath, feeling shaky, “If you don’t want me to visit anymore,  _onee-sama_ , just tell me.”

To this, Noriko receives no answer. Yoshizaka presses her lips together, looks away. The window is closed and the air suddenly feels much more deadened, thick and heavy with apathetic silence and the day’s heat. Distantly, Noriko imagines the lilies withering, dry and untended to, and tries her best not to picture Yoshizaka succumbing to the same fate. The transient life of ceremonial flowers. But, she won’t, will she? Her big sis is stronger than that.

Her lips tremble with the promise of something yet to be said: a declaration of love, perhaps, or an ardent promise of protection. A hundred things come to Noriko’s mind, but each of them feels more trite and meaningless than the last, and in the end her mouth remains shut.

Noriko takes a step, and another, until she’s outside of the hospital room. The door closes with a click, and it’s at that point that she starts running. Her soles squeak insistently against the polished floor the way she knows Yoshizaka’s would never, not anymore, and the thought only sends her feet moving faster. She’s such a coward.

 

 

 

Club Zodiac assaults her with darkness the moment she steps inside. The smell of smoke is too much to bear at first, and Noriko coughs, her eyes burning with something besides tears as she tries adjusting her sight to the dim lighting.

Finding Yoshizaka wasn’t hard. News of her removal from the school roster was not publicized, at least officially, but it was easy to draw one’s own conclusions, as most of the student body did. Noriko didn’t have to dig deep to find out where Yoshizaka had been. The suggestion had nagged at her for a long time; it was the confirmation that got her to move. She was just too afraid to take a step forward and face her all this time.

That, Noriko knows, is the difficult part.

“Do I really… bother you that much?” she asks, more to herself than anyone else. Her eyes are downcast.

This time, Yoshizaka doesn’t bother to acknowledge her altogether. The cigarette stick burns brightly between Yoshizaka’s fingertips and Noriko feels sick to her stomach. Her lungs sting with the smoke and a part of her anticipates, perversely, the feeling of it in her blood, toxin instead of oxygen. She inhales, sharp. The music is too loud and pounds in the walls of her consciousness, impulses threatening to break away. She runs and runs again.

 

 

 

She sees Yoshizaka for the first time since all of this started, whip in hand and a woman Noriko remembers from the club earlier in tow. The classroom, mercifully, is empty of enemies. Noriko drops the mop she’d been using to defend herself and runs, without preamble, into her big sister’s arms. Concerns about Nazis and cultists and her strange attire are quickly set aside in favor of the once-familiar feeling of having her big sister this close to her. Noriko looks up to meet Yoshizaka’s eyes and thinks, it’s been a long time, hasn't it.

“You’re—back,” Noriko says, smiling through her tears. “ _Onee-sama_!”

“You’ve been so patient with me all this time,” Yoshizaka says. Her eyes are soft and her smile is small, but genuine. Her arms circle tighter around Noriko. “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> 29/09/17: i still really like this ship. written while i was procrastinating on finishing club zodiac's dungeon in eternal punishment -- i got lost too many times...


End file.
